d96cce85869936e100269b1b5859acef8e1fec80
hiram
  Fri Feb 15 11:22:27 2019 -0800
now dumping contents of any database table refs #18869

diff --git src/hg/hubApi/apiUtils.c src/hg/hubApi/apiUtils.c
index fc605f2..8c2f3d0 100644
--- src/hg/hubApi/apiUtils.c
+++ src/hg/hubApi/apiUtils.c
@@ -1,49 +1,50 @@
 /* utility functions for data API business */
 
 #include "dataApi.h"
 
 void apiErrAbort(char *format, ...)
 /* Issue an error message in json format, and exit(0) */
 {
 char errMsg[2048];
 va_list args;
 va_start(args, format);
 vsnprintf(errMsg, sizeof(errMsg), format, args);
 struct jsonWrite *jw = apiStartOutput();
 jsonWriteString(jw, "error", errMsg);
 jsonWriteObjectEnd(jw);
 fputs(jw->dy->string,stdout);
 exit(0);
 }
 
 struct jsonWrite *apiStartOutput()
 /* begin json output with standard header information for all requests */
 {
 time_t timeNow = time(NULL);
 // struct tm tm;
 // gmtime_r(&timeNow, &tm);
 struct jsonWrite *jw = jsonWriteNew();
 jsonWriteObjectStart(jw, NULL);
 jsonWriteString(jw, "apiVersion", "0.1");
 jsonWriteString(jw, "source", "UCSantaCruz");
 jsonWriteDateFromUnix(jw, "downloadTime", (long long) timeNow);
 jsonWriteNumber(jw, "downloadTimeStamp", (long long) timeNow);
 return jw;
 }
 
-void tableColumns(struct sqlConnection *conn, struct jsonWrite *jw, char *table)
-/* output the column names for the given table */
+int tableColumns(struct sqlConnection *conn, struct jsonWrite *jw, char *table)
+/* output the column names, and their MySQL data type, for the given table
+ *  return number of columns (aka 'fields')
+ */
 {
 jsonWriteListStart(jw, "columnNames");
-char query[1024];
-sqlSafef(query, sizeof(query), "desc %s", table);
-struct sqlResult *sr = sqlGetResult(conn, query);
-char **row;
-row = sqlNextRow(sr);
-if (NULL == row)
-    apiErrAbort("internal error: can not 'desc' SQL table '%s'", table);
-while ((row = sqlNextRow(sr)) != NULL)
-    jsonWriteString(jw, NULL, row[0]);
-sqlFreeResult(&sr);
+struct sqlFieldInfo *fi, *fiList = sqlFieldInfoGet(conn, table);
+int columnCount = slCount(fiList);
+for (fi = fiList; fi; fi = fi->next)
+    {
+    jsonWriteObjectStart(jw, NULL);
+    jsonWriteString(jw, fi->field, fi->type);
+    jsonWriteObjectEnd(jw);
+    }
 jsonWriteListEnd(jw);
+return columnCount;
 }